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Ashkynasse was born to Moishe and Mottl Ashkynase in a small town in Austria-Hungary on August 21, 1897. In 1907 his family immigrated to the United States.[1], settling on Hopkinson Avenue in Brooklyn.

In August 1923 Sam met Russian immigrant Rose Dinin and 6 months later, on February 9, 1924, they married. Rose felt that the income from Sam’s music career wasn’t reliable, so they decided to start their own business. They pawned Rose’s engagement ring for $400 (she later got it back) in order to make the final downpayment to rent the building that would become the first Sam Ash Music Store.[2]

In 1925, their first son Jerry was born, followed in 1929 by their second son Paul, and finally their daughter Marcia in 1935, with the family living in a small 3-bedroom apartment behind the music store as they struggled to grow the business in the midst of the Great Depression. As the economy began to recover their neighborhood was declining, so in 1944 they moved to another part of Brooklyn, buying a building on 236 Utica Avenue.

Ash had already expanded his store’s offerings beyond the initial assortment of sheet music, music instrument repairs, and phonographs. He began capitalizing on area school music programs by delivering sheet music and stocking a growing selection of band instruments. In the 1950s as rhythm and blues and rock and roll gained popularity, Ash was among the first stores in the area to add guitar brands like Gibson and Fender. He also tasked son Paul with adding a record store, which at one point accounted for nearly half the store’s overall revenue.[3]